Episodes
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Alex trawls through Lord Lucan’s belongings from his speedily abandoned flat.
She finds incriminating books where he’s torn out pages on how to kill your wife, and is taken aback by photos that make her reconsider the story.
She draws together what makes this a compelling crime, and asks what would give it the perfect ending.
And in a remarkable interview with a former Met Police Detective, she discovers that we could perhaps get an answer to one of the two mysteries tomorrow.
Presenter: Alex von TunzelmannContent Producer: Becca BryersSeries Producer: Sarah Bowen
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Our interest in Lord Lucan could have petered out after the inquest. But people start to spot him all over the world. Could he really have escaped the UK?
Alex von Tunzelmann explores what role this idea plays in our fixation with the Lucan case.
She hears how the media kept the story going, inventing sightings for copy and jollies abroad. People admit to elaborate hoaxes and blatantly fabricating stories.
But should we dismiss the idea? Alex finds one story from a closed police file that completely bowls her over.
Producer: Sarah Bowen
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Missing episodes?
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The nation was spellbound by the inquest into Sandra Rivett’s death.
For the press the story was a dream. A tale of the aristocracy, gambling, debt and murder was a welcome relief in an era of shortages and strikes. They salivated over the grim details.
Alex von Tunzelmann hears how inquest became a trial, supercharging our obsession with this case.
And she wonders if we can take his guilt as fact when she hears a never before broadcast recording of an interview of Lady Lucan and an incriminating new story from a policeman.
Producer: Sarah Bowen
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Police traipsed through 46 Lower Belgrave St on the night of Sandra Rivett’s murder, but did they contaminate the evidence?
The police files are still closed. Where there have been unanswered questions, enticing myths and conspiracies have filled the void.
Alex von Tunzelmann pieces together what we can know of the investigation, trying to separate fact from fiction.
She hears from two policemen who worked on the Lucan case and reassesses the forensics with an ex-Metropolitan Police detective.
Stories emerge about close relations between the press and police and she wonders if booze, bribes and class deference may have obscured the truth.
Producer: Sarah Bowen
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With Sandra Rivett lying dead in the basement, Lucan must decide whether to face the police or run.
And so begins the second mystery that has made this case so compelling.
Where did Lucan go that night?
Was he being sheltered by his friends who the police nicknamed The Eaton Square Mafia?
Alex von Tunzelmann pieces together what we know of the hours after the murder, asking whose version should we believe.
She meets an eyewitness who says she was the last person to see Lucan alive, and crawls underground into a bunker where the police were sure he was hiding.
Producer: Sarah Bowen
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Many relationships have tricky patches, with couples struggling for money or over the children. But there’s a spark in this story that takes us from the Lucan’s glamorous society wedding to Sandra Rivett being murdered, Lady Lucan attacked and the children swept away. And it grips us.
Alex von Tunzleman hunts for what triggers this story, delving through a box of Lucan’s possessions not seen for decades. As she discovers cheque stubs, invoices and letters from the bank, she sees the reality of what life was like behind the Lucan’s veneer of respectability: a world of debt and alcohol, gaslighting, late night calls and stalking.
Producer: Sarah Bowen
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The press portrayed Lady Lucan as a perfect victim: a tiny, fragile woman, attacked by a cruel and vengeful man. Lord Lucan’s friends said she was a volatile, difficult snob.
She is certainly enigmatic and intriguing.
With access to never before broadcast tapes, Alex von Tunzlemann looks for the truth behind the stories of the Countess and explores how her image emerged. Producer: Sarah Bowen
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Lord Lucan raced powerboats through the English Channel, drove an Aston Martin around the Grand Canyon and completed the Cresta Run at Saint-Moritz.
Throwing himself into gambling, he was nicknamed Lucky.
With slicked back hair, charm, style and humour, he was remarkably striking.
But underneath this image there was a very different man.
Alex hears from friends, biographers and someone who lived in the Lucan household to ask who really was Lord Lucan?
Was he the vicious, violent and dangerous murderer of Sandra Rivett or was this a myth it was seductive to believe?
Producer: Sarah Bowen
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What really happened on the night of 7th November 1974 when Sandra Rivett was murdered?
Young reporter Bob Strange sneaked into the hallway at the Lucan’s house in Belgravia. The police burst in trampling through the crime scene.
The evidence of the Lucan case is murky. There are many versions that contradict themselves. Lord Lucan says something entirely different happened.
Who should we believe? And how do the mysteries surrounding that night, drive our obsession with this case?
Producer: Sarah Bowen
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One winter's night, 50 years ago, a crime took place that obsessed the nation.
Lord Lucan is said to have killed the family nanny, attacked his wife and vanished.
Newspapers ran wild with lurid detail and it became a story hardwired into British culture.
Why did this case capture the British imagination, and spark one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the 20th Century?
Historian Alex von Tunzelmann unpacks the story of our obsession, taking us into a dizzying world of high stakes gambling and exclusive London clubs, powerboat racing and pet tigers. It’s also a dark realm of bankruptcy, gaslighting and stalking, and at its heart, a story with a violent and very tragic death.
Across the series she investigates the two mysteries at the centre of this story: was Lord Lucan the murder, and where on earth did he go?
Told and retold, the facts of the Lucan story have got lost. Alex finds herself in a hall of mirrors where truth and lies distort themselves into new myths and new mysteries. Was the truth obscured by booze and backhanders, class deference and journalist spin?
As she tries to get to the bottom of this case, she meets eyewitnesses from the '70s, people caught up in the crime, and those who just can’t let it go. She unearths long forgotten tapes and letters, piecing together fragments of a legend to discover why the Lucan myth still holds such power.
Series contributors: Algy Cluff, Pierrette Goletto and Mandy Parks Journalists: Bob Strange and James FoxAuthor: Laura Thompson Crime writer: Claire McGowan Police: Geoff Lewry, Richard Swarbrick and Jackie Malton UK Missing Persons Unit: Louise Newell
Presenter: Alex von TunzelmannSeries Producer: Sarah BowenContent Producer: Becca Bryers
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One winter's night, 50 years ago, a crime took place that obsessed the nation.
Lord Lucan is said to have killed the family nanny, attacked his wife and vanished. Why did this case capture the British imagination, and spark one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the 20th Century?
Alex von Tunzelmann unpacks the story of our obsession, taking us into a dizzying world of high stakes gambling and exclusive London clubs, powerboat racing and pet tigers. It's also a dark realm of bankruptcy, gaslighting and stalking, and at its heart, a story with a violent and very tragic death.
She tries to get to the bottom of this case, meeting eyewitnesses from the '70s, people caught up in the crime, and those who just can't let it go. Told and retold, the facts of the Lucan story have got lost. Alex discovers a hall of mirrors where truth and lies have distorted themselves into new myths and new mysteries.
Was the truth obscured by booze and backhanders, class deference and journalist spin? As the stories and conspiracies swirl around her, Alex herself gets caught up in the Lucan obsession. Across the series she unearths long forgotten tapes and letters, piecing together the fragments of the legend to discover why the Lucan myth still holds such power.
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Remember remember the 5th of November. The Gunpowder Plot has been seared into centuries of British popular history. Why have the events of October 1984 and the attempt to wipe out a Prime Minister and her cabinet not been committed to our public consciousness in the same way?
For the principal contributors in our series, the events of 40 years ago had a seismic impact on their lives. What, if anything, did the Brighton time bomb achieve?
Written and presented by Glenn Patterson
Series Producer: Owen McFaddenStory Consultant and Sound Design: Alan HallProducer: Lena FergusonArchive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormickProduction Co-Ordinator: Hollie WallaceComposer: Mark McCambridgeSound Engineer: Claire MarquessMixing Engineer: Mike WoolleyPatrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions
Executive Producer Rachel Hooper
A Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films
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When you get right down to it, everything in life is a matter of timing.
Any other evening, a knock at the door would put Patrick Magee on alert. As chance would have it, though, it being a Saturday, rent day, Magee, and the four other people in the flat with him on Glasgow’s Langside Road, are expecting the landlord.
Instead Magee opens the door to dozens of police and Special Branch officers who have over the past few hours massed around the address. They rush into the flat and overpower them before they have time to react.
After six years of trying, Special Branch finally have the man they have dubbed ‘the Chancer’, the man only a few of them as yet know bombed Brighton’s Grand Hotel.
Getting him to confess to it, or even speak, is another matter.
Written and presented by Glenn Patterson
Series Producer: Owen McFaddenStory Consultant and Sound Design: Alan HallProducer: Lena FergusonArchive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormickProduction Co-Ordinator: Hollie WallaceComposer: Mark McCambridgeSound Engineer: Claire MarquessMixing Engineer: Mike WoolleyPatrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions
Executive Producer Rachel Hooper
A Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films
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Spring 1985, six months on from the bomb at Brighton’s Grand Hotel that killed five men and women in town for the Conservative Party conference and came within feet of killing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Police are now satisfied that they have identified the man responsible for planting the bomb - Patrick Magee, aka the Chancer.
They just don’t know where he is.
Magee is back in Britain, planting a bomb in a hotel across the road from Buckingham Palace with an even longer timer fuse than the Brighton bomb. A police surveillance operation on another IRA suspect, meanwhile, leads to an unexpected result.
Written and presented by Glenn Patterson
Series Producer: Owen McFaddenStory Consultant and Sound Design: Alan HallProducer: Lena FergusonArchive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormickProduction Co-Ordinator: Hollie WallaceComposer: Mark McCambridgeSound Engineer: Claire MarquessMixing Engineer: Mike WoolleyPatrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions
Executive Producer Rachel Hooper
A Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films
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Patrick Magee plays mouse to the cat of the Southern Irish police, acting on a tip-off from their colleagues in the North.
He escapes back to Great Britain from Dublin and joins a new IRA unit planning a summer-long campaign targeting seaside resorts: more bombs in hotels and a new tactic - burying bombs on beaches. It will be the most concentrated wave of IRA attacks since the 1930s.
Written and presented by Glenn Patterson
Series Producer: Owen McFaddenStory Consultant and Sound Design: Alan HallProducer: Lena FergusonArchive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormickProduction Co-Ordinator: Hollie WallaceComposer: Mark McCambridgeSound Engineer: Claire MarquessMixing Engineer: Mike WoolleyPatrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions
Executive Producer Rachel Hooper
A Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films
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It's the day after one of the most shocking terror attacks in British history - a timebomb hidden in the Brighton hotel where the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and her cabinet are staying during the 1984 Conservative Party conference.
The casualties have all now been recovered. Four are dead, several of the injured are fighting for life.
Now all that remains is the rubble. Somewhere in here will lie the answer to who was responsible. Not the organisation – the Provisional IRA has already said it was them – but the individual human being, or beings, who left the bomb.
All the police have to do is find them.
Written and presented by Glenn Patterson
Series Producer: Owen McFaddenStory Consultant and Sound Design: Alan HallProducer: Lena FergusonArchive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormickProduction Co-Ordinator: Hollie WallaceComposer: Mark McCambridgeSound Engineer: Claire MarquessMixing Engineer: Mike WoolleyPatrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions
Executive Producer Rachel Hooper
A Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films
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The IRA’s Patrick Magee has left a bomb, under a bath, in room 629 of the Brighton’s Grand Hotel. It’s timed to go off in three weeks, three days, six hours and thirty-six minutes, at 2.54am on Friday 12 October. The day of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton. While Party colleagues socialise, or prepare for bed on the last night of conference, the Prime Minister settles down to write her big speech until the early hours.
Or until 2:54am, when the bomb goes off. It's the biggest direct assault on a British Government since the Gunpowder Plot.
Written and presented by Glenn Patterson
Series Producer: Owen McFaddenStory Consultant and Sound Design: Alan HallProducer: Lena FergusonArchive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormickProduction Co-Ordinator: Hollie WallaceComposer: Mark McCambridgeSound Engineer: Claire MarquessMixing Engineer: Mike WoolleyPatrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions
Executive Producer: Rachel Hooper
A Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films for BBC Radio 4
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When you get right down to it, everything in life is a matter of timing. It's the night of 17 September 1984. The guest in room 629 of Brighton’s Grand Hotel has ordered a bottle of vodka and three cokes. A few minutes before, the guest – who signed in two days ago as Roy Walsh – put the panel back on the side of the bath in 629’s en suite. Behind that panel he has left a bomb, timed to go off in three weeks, three days, six hours and thirty-six minutes, at 2.54am on Friday 12 October. The day of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton. And the Prime Minister and all her cabinet, as this man who calls himself Roy Walsh knows, will be staying in the Grand Hotel. How do you feel as the timer ticks down? How do you fill your days?
And what of those who, all unknowing, are travelling towards the end date you have set?
Written and presented by Glenn Patterson
Series Producer: Owen McFaddenStory Consultant and Sound Design: Alan HallProducer: Lena FergusonArchive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormickProduction Co-Ordinator: Hollie WallaceComposer: Mark McCambridgeSound Engineer: Claire MarquessMixing Engineer: Mike WoolleyPatrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions
Executive Producer: Rachel Hooper
A Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films for BBC Radio 4
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The bomb is set for 12 October 1984 - but the IRA have been building to this for decades
It's the night of 17 September 1984. The guest in room 629 of Brighton’s Grand Hotel has ordered a bottle of vodka and three cokes. It seems he is having a small party. A few minutes before, the guest – who signed in two days ago as Roy Walsh – put the panel back on the side of the bath in 629’s en suite. Behind that panel he has left a bomb, timed to go off in three weeks, three days, six hours and thirty-six minutes, at 2.54am on Friday 12 October. The day of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton.
And the Prime Minister and all her cabinet, as this man who calls himself Roy Walsh knows, will be staying in the Grand Hotel. It's the biggest direct assault on the British Government since the Gunpowder Plot.
The bomb will kill 5 people and injure 30. It's the latest in a line of Irish republican attacks in England that stretches back to 1867.
Written and presented by Glenn Patterson
Series Producer: Owen McFaddenStory Consultant and Sound Design: Alan HallProducer: Lena FergusonArchive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormickProduction Co-Ordinator: Hollie WallaceComposer: Mark McCambridgeSound Engineer: Claire MarquessMixing Engineer: Mike WoolleyPatrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions
Executive Producer: Rachel Hooper
A Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films for BBC Radio 4
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The clock – the long-delay timer – nobody is meant to hear is counting down to 2.54am on the 12th October, 1984.
It's attached to a bomb, behind the panel of the bath of Room 629 in Brighton’s Grand Hotel, left there by a man who signed in as Roy Walsh.
Except he's not Roy Walsh.
Who is the man using his name? And how did he go from a childhood in the east of England to attempting to assassinate the Prime Minister and all her cabinet in the biggest assault on a British government since the Gunpowder Plot on 5th November 1605? The long timer to this moment was set many, many years before.
Written and presented by Glenn Patterson
Series Producer: Owen McFaddenStory Consultant and Sound Design: Alan HallProducer: Lena FergusonArchive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormickProduction Co-Ordinator: Hollie WallaceComposer: Mark McCambridgeSound Engineer: Claire MarquessMixing Engineer: Mike WoolleyPatrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions
Executive Producer: Rachel Hooper
A Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films for BBC Radio 4
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